


Whenever This World Is Cruel To Me

by FlirtyFroggy



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Booker | Sebastian le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Friendship, Gen, Joe and Booker have matching rings, Sort Of, they are brothers and I love them and they make me sad, they are friendship rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28507536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlirtyFroggy/pseuds/FlirtyFroggy
Summary: “Am I going to have to fight you for that ring?”“There’s two of them, asshole, look.”He was right. Above it was another ring, not quite identical but similar enough that they looked like they belonged together. “Matching rings,” he mused. He gave Booker another sideways look, smirking. “Sebastien, are you proposing to me?” Booker threw his head back and laughed.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 191





	Whenever This World Is Cruel To Me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](https://of-scythia.tumblr.com/post/639079011388112896/im-sorry-im-gone-feral-at-the-gina-insta-drop-but) tumblr post.
> 
> Title from Queen's 'You're My Best Friend', which is not actually a very appropriate song for this fic.

Getting drunk with Booker during the day, or at any time really, was always something of a crapshoot. There was no telling which Booker you were going to get at the bottom of the bottle. Happy Booker, sad Booker, angry Booker. Occasionally, affectionate Booker. The alcohol seemed to trap him somewhere, and you could never tell going in whether it was going to be the past or the present.

So far today, much to Joe’s relief, it seemed to be the present.

“Hey,” Booker said out of nowhere. “You two ever get married?”

Joe paused with his glass to his lips, aware of where this could go. But Booker seemed open and genuinely curious. If he was thinking about his wife, it wasn’t with any of the usual moroseness. “Me and Nicky?” he asked, testing the waters. Booker rolled his eyes in response.

“No, you and Andy.”

“Oh, me and Andy got married lots of times. Well, pretended to be husband and wife. Not the same thing really.”

“I know. I was there for some of them.”

“Right. Yeah.” It had been a while since they’d done that actually. He’d lost track a bit. He squinted into his glass and tried to remember how many he’d had.

“But you and Nicky?” Booker prodded.

“Me and Nicky what? Oh. Married. Yes. No. Not married married, like you mean it. There was a ceremony they used to do in Europe where you swore brotherhood to each other and some would use it for less brotherly purposes, but we never did that. Never really felt the need.” He drained the last of his drink. “But we have sworn vows to each other.”

Booker nodded and poured him another drink. “That’s nice.”

“It is.”

“The ring?” Booker said, nodding at where Joe was twisting his silver ring round his finger. He hadn’t realised he was doing it.

“What about it?”

“Christ, Joe, how much of this have you had?”

“You keep refilling my glass, I don’t know.”

“Is the ring a wedding ring?” Booker said, over-enunciating every word. Joe threw a beer mat at him.

“Yes. No.”

Booker put his hands over his face and groaned. “Nothing’s ever straightforward with you, is it?” he said, muffled.

“You’re one to talk,” Joe retorted. Booker dropped his hands and gave him a half-hearted glare. “I bought the ring to mark our union, yes.” That had been… a very long time ago. The current ring wasn’t even the one he had bought back then, that one was long gone. He had been through several replacements over the centuries, and it wasn’t as though he needed anything to remind him of Nicky and the promises they had made, but. It was nice. So little in their lives was tangible. Also once, long ago, Nicolò had said he liked the way his rings drew attention to his hands. “Why do you ask?” he said, pulling himself out of the 12th century.

Booker shrugged. “Just curious. I like knowing things about you. You’re my friends.” It was Nicky-like in it’s directness and sincerity, the sort of thing Booker only said when they were most of the way through a bottle of whiskey and they’d skipped lunch. Joe took a too-large swallow of his drink and almost choked. “You alright?” Booker asked, eyes wide. Joe nodded, eyes watering. “Good. I don’t want to have to explain to Nicky that I let you choke to death on my watch.” 

Joe laughed so hard he almost choked again. When he calmed down Booker suggested they leave the pub, which was how Joe knew he was more drunk than he had realised. Booker was never the first to suggest leaving any kind of drinking establishment.

The cold air hit them both as they left, and they wandered the streets aimlessly for a while, weaving between the normal people as they went about their normal lives. They were just the right level of drunk for it to be nice.

They passed a jewellers and Joe stopped as a flash of silver in the window caught his eye. “What?” Booker asked. Joe pointed at the ring he had his eye on. “Nice,” he said approvingly. Joe gave him a sideways glance.

“Am I going to have to fight you for that ring?”

“There’s two of them, asshole, look.”

He was right. Above it was another ring, not quite identical but similar enough that they looked like they belonged together. “Matching rings,” he mused. He gave Booker another sideways look, smirking. “Sebastien, are you proposing to me?” Booker threw his head back and laughed, long and loud in a way he rarely did, no sign of sarcasm or self-deprecation.

“I think I’m a few centuries too late for that,” he said, as though the timing was the only issue there. “No, not proposing. But, y’know.” He looked Joe right in the eye. “Maybe swearing brotherhood.”

Joe tried to grin and bite his lip at the same time, which must have done something weird to his face because Booker laughed at him again.

They bought the rings.

~~

Joe ached all over in a way that shouldn’t physically be possible for them but he had long since learned actually was. The shower hadn’t helped in that regard at all. He dried himself off quickly, pulled on clean underwear and jeans, and stepped over his blood-stained clothes to the sink. His necklace went on first, then Nicky’s ring, then…

He twisted Booker’s ring round in his fingers and considered dropping it in the bin. Or the toilet. Perhaps he could find the nearest body of water and dramatically fling it in.

Instead he gripped it in his fist, clenched so tight his nails dug into his palms, and left the bathroom.

There was a small box in a safe under the floorboards at Gousainville. It contained several rings either broken or too fragile to wear, part of a brooch, a polished stone and the hilt of a knife. But it would be days or weeks before they went back to Gousainville.

Nicky was sitting on the edge of the bed when Joe entered the bedroom, looking as exhausted as Joe felt. He didn’t say anything, just watched as Joe picked up his wallet and dropped the ring inside. He put the wallet down on the bedside table, then picked it up again, turning it over and over. Nicky smiled sadly and held out his hand. Joe pulled out the ring and placed it carefully in Nicky’s palm. “I don’t want to carry it around with me but I don’t— I can’t—”

“I know.”

Nicky tugged him down into his lap and pulled him flush against his chest where he could feel the warmth of him, feel his heartbeat steady against his own. He took Joe’s hands and kissed every finger, with an extra kiss for the now-empty space. If he were mortal there would be a mark where the ring had been, the skin worn slightly smoother. But there was nothing to show there had ever been anything there at all.

“Stop it,” Nicky whispered.

“Stop what?”

“Being maudlin.”

“Well, we’re going to have to share out his jobs now. That could be mine,” Joe tried to joke. He didn’t need to see the way Nicky’s mouth tightened to know he’d missed his mark. “Sorry.”

Nicky wrapped his arms around him and rested his forehead against Joe's. They sat and breathed together, Nicky’s thumb rubbing Joe’s spine and Joe’s thumb rubbing the patch of skin where a ring used to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Where is the first part happening? When is it happening? Don't ask me, I'm just the author. I thought about it being the Prospect of Whitby, the pub where they decide Booker's fate at the end of the movie, and that's definitely still a possibility, but I decided to leave it ambiguous.
> 
> Are the rings actually similar? I don't know, I haven't checked. Is Joe's ring actually missing in the pub scene? I don't know, I haven't checked.
> 
> Headcanon I couldn't fit into the fic: Booker's necklace was given to him by Andy and his leather cuff was a gift from Nicky. They were all given either drunkenly spontaneously as in the fic, or off-handedly like when Andy gives him the book in the movie, because that's the only way you can get Booker to accept anything meaningful.
> 
> I feel like there's a longer fic in here about Joe's jewellery through the centuries and also the other things he keeps in that box and I may write that some day.
> 
> I believe there was a medieval ceremony performed where two men could pledge their lifelong devotion to each other in a non-romantic, non-sexual way, and that it was sometimes used by men who wanted to do the romance and/or the sex under the radar. I can't remember what it was called or anything about it. Any help from anyone who actually knows stuff would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> There's a lot more Joe/Nicky in this than I intended but they're a package deal what can you do?
> 
> These notes are almost as long as the fic, I'm so sorry.


End file.
